Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/215

Rh kind that Abraham has on?" asked Sammie. "No," we replied; "what is it for?" Abraham himself replied that it was something he wore for luck and to help him, and that every morning when he said his prayers he kissed these blue cords. We found that most of the boys had these, though one said he had not, but his father wore a large one which he let him kiss every day. Sammie told us that he had a different kind which he wore on his arm and on his forehead; that it was made of leather. He volunteered to show us one, which he did a few days later. Before he put this on for us he washed his hands and face and brushed his hair. He also fasted until he took it off, as he said he never wore it except before breakfast. Whatever the fringes of the garments and phylacteries may have been once, they are now, with these children and the more ignorant of the adult Jews, nothing more nor less than charms. It will here be of interest to quote some references to these things. In Numbers, XV, 38-41: "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying: Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes [tassels in the corners] in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringes of each border a cord of blue: and it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them. . . . That ye may remember, and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God. I am the Lord your God, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God."

As to the phylacteries, there is no such explicit direction as to their making. The details were, however, very exactly arranged by the religious teachers. The leathern boxes could be only made of cowskin; the thongs must be applied to the left arm and forehead in a particular way. The little box contains four passages of Scripture—Exod. xiii. 2-10, 11-14; Deut. vi, 4-9, 13-22—written on rolled strips of parchment. The ink used must be of a